Scandal
by Katako-Chan
Summary: When Fate brews a special potion, all hell breaks loose. Scorpius/Rose


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter. It's all Jo's.

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**Scandal**

by Katako-Chan

Rose Weasley had been through a number of scandals in her life. While she was never actually in the limelight, she was always intimately involved in some shape or form with the member of her family (Weasley scandals were renown for being quite...epic) that was shoved unwillingly into the spotlight. There had been the time when Hugo had accidentally levitated a Muggle girl up onto the roof of their house in front of a large audience of decidedly un-magical people when Rose was ten. There had been the time in Rose's fourth year when Lily had been madly infatuated with a Slytherin seventh year, and had confided in Lucy and her about it, only to find that Fred had been listening in on Extendable Ears. But the most scandalous scandal of all had been the time during first year when Al had, to the surprise of many, befriended his father's and uncle's long-time enemy's son, Scorpius, and remained best mates ever since. Rose knew that scandals swept everyone up into them while they lasted, but died out as suddenly as they came. But what she didn't know was someone had been brewing a scandal for the longest time, and it was about to be unleashed very soon, with her at the center.

The aforementioned best mate of Albus Severus Potter had just wandered into the library, in search of what, he knew not. But in all his six years at Hogwarts, he'd never really entered the library. Usually, it had been Rose who forced books upon Al, who in turn immediately headed down to the dungeons and dumped half the load upon Scorpius. He had done most of his studying without making direct contact with the musty room with its vaulted ceilings and smell of ancient parchment. If he really needed something from there, he'd either ask Al, who could usually find it in his cousin's extensive library, or ask Rosie herself.

At the moment of his entering the library, Rose sat at a table in the center of the library, so as to have the easiest access to all sections of it, buried in heaps of books, parchment, and her own wildly curly red hair. The essay she was working on wasn't due until after Christmas break, as was everything else on her extensive "Homework To-Do" list, but she wasn't going to end up like Al, Hugo, and the rest of her family, scrambling to finish everything the night before term started again. She was so very engrossed in finishing off her essay with a flourish that she didn't notice Scorpius until he was right in front of her, quite literally.

"Rose, don't you ever have any fun?" Scorpius asked, by way of greeting. "It's Christmas break, for Merlin's sake. Al asked me to come here and find you. Something about some kind of family gathering?"

"I do have fun, Malfoy. I'm just not like the rest of you: laying around during the hols like you've never so much as had a vacation in your life, and then receiving a bunch of T's on the essays you were assigned during break. I get my work done, and then I play."

"Ouch, that one stung a bit. Since when did you start calling me 'Malfoy' again, anyways? I thought we were on a first name basis!" He feigned a hurt look.

"I know your kind of people, Scorpius. You, Al, James: lazy bums at best, and a bunch of chauvinistic pigs most of the time."

"Oh, but you know you love us."

Rose rolled her eyes in response and returned to her essay, but she couldn't help agreeing inwardly. Yes, they were all a bunch of, well, boys, most of the time, but they had all found a place in her heart, somehow. Al could have been her twin, having known each other since the very day she was born (sadly, Al was two months older), and James was as much his older brother as hers. And Scorpius? Well, she'd had her apprehensions about him at first, but he had proved her wrong. That had been the only time anyone had (disregarding her mother, who didn't count because she was the cleverest witch ever).

Rose dotted the "i" of her final word with an unnecessary flourish of her quill, set it down, and began to roll up her essay. About halfway through, she noticed that Scorpius was unnaturally quiet, eyes looking directly at her without blinking as his chin rested upon his hand.

"Scorpius? Scorpius? Scorpius, don't give me that 'I'm-ignoring-this-annoying-girl-in-front-of-me' look. Hugo and Al do it all the time, I don't fall for it anymore. Scorpius!" Rose waved a hand in front of his face and glared at him.

Scorpius stood up suddenly, knocking over his chair. "You know, Rosie, you don't know 'my kind of people,' as well as you think. You call this an 'I'm-ignoring-this-annoying-girl-in-front-of me' look? Well, I call it my 'I'm-staring-at-the-most-beautiful-girl-on-the-face-of-the-Earth' look."

And with that, he leaned over and kissed her.

--

Faintly, a distant voice could be heard saying, "Dad, you know Rosie spends all her time in the library. Merlin, and you call yourself her father? You've come and visited with Uncle Harry so many times, and you haven't noticed that yet?"


End file.
